2018 in film

We’re now into the final month of 2018 and wow, what a year it has been for film. Studios have finally figured out that spreading tent pole movies across the year is more profitable than scheduling them all for the summer.

Who knew?

This approach has benefits and consequences.

The good? There has been something good every month throughout the year! Hurrah!

The bad? We’ve had a bit of a bottleneck at times, with lots of big name films landing in quick succession (Infinity War, Deadpool, Solo, Jurassic World etc).

Anyway, here’s 2018 in film…

2018 kicked off with one very significant movie which actually made its debut in (very) late 2017 – The Greatest Showman. I’ve talked about this one A LOT on It’s A Stampede!, but that’s for one very good reason – it’s been the success story of the year.

The Greatest Showman may not have made the most money in 2018, but it was one of the most consistent performers. The film opened in December 2017 but remained in UK cinemas until June 2018 and is even heading back into Vue cinemas this month for a special sing-a-long screening.

Continuing through early 2018 Disney-Pixar presented the beautiful and touching, Coco; Tri-Star Pictures brought us All the Money in the World (with a standout performance from Christopher Plummer); and Marvel Studios unveiled Black Panther.

To date, in the US, Black Panther is the most successful film of 2018 with a domestic box office take of $700,059,566. The film is also the best rated Marvel Cinematic Universe movie so far (according to Rotten Tomatoes), with a Tomatometer score of 97%.

Great stuff, right? Well, yes – but we’ve only just started with 2018.

While Black Panther might be the best MCU movie, the film which received the biggest plaudit of the year was The Shape of Water. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water won Best Picture at the 90th Academy Awards (along with Best Director, Best Production Design and Best Original Score) and critics loved it.

More movies came thick and fast including Annihilation, A Wrinkle in Time, Game Night, Unsane, Blockers, Tomb Raider, Isle of Dogs and Batman Ninja. Not all of these movies were critical or commercial successes, but they all tried their best to win over the audience.

Speaking of which, a film that completely won me over was Love, Simon – the romantic teen comedy based on the novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Directed by Greg Berlanti, the film stars Nick Robinson as high school student Simon Spier – a guy with a secret he’s not quite ready to share – in what is ultimately a coming out story for the 21st century.

Marvellous.

More big names for 2018 included the sci-fi spectacular, Ready Player One; the atmospheric horror, A Quiet Place; the dumb-but-incredibly-fun, Rampage; and a little independent production called… Avengers: Infinity War.

Anyone remember that?

OF COURSE YOU DO!

Infinity War was the biggest film of 2018, taking a whopping $2,046,909,636 at the worldwide box office. It was (and still is) the film that everybody talked about!

I highlighted this earlier in the year, but the response to Infinity War was just incredible – I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The demand for this movie was amazing, with audiences flocking in their droves to see it.

Infinity War wasn’t just a milestone movie, it was also the film that kicked off the blockbuster season which continued with the likes of Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Ocean’s 8, TheIncredibles 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Skyscraper and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

What was the best blockbuster of the year (after Infinity War)? Easy – Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

Henry Cavill gave a star turn in the Tom Cruise-actioner which proved there is plenty of life left in the spy series. If you’ve still not seen it, give it a watch!

But it wasn’t just blockbusters that cropped up during the summer, there was also horror in the shape of Hereditary and The First Purge; docu-film, Whitney; and hilarious cartoon fun with Teen Titans GO! To the Movies.

Moving into the tail-end of summer and beyond, the cinema was filled with the likes of The Meg, Christopher Robin, The House with a Clock in its Walls and… er… The Predator. Yeah, that one wasn’t great.

But that’s OK, because along came The Miseducation of Cameron Post (powerful stuff and highly recommended); Summer of ’84 (an awesome ’80s throwback); and Halloween (an excellent belated sequel).

Things then went a little… er.. off with Venom, but while that movie may not have been a hit with critics it has certainly been a hit with audiences. The film has taken more than $820 million at the worldwide box office and is still drawing in audiences.

Venom was then accompanied by Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, Bohemian Rhapsody, Creed II and Ralph Breaks the Internet. And this takes us into December.

You’d think by now that 2018 would be done and dusted, all the big films played out and nothing left to come. But you’d be wrong.

Before 2019 rears its head, we’ve still got Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, BumbleBee, Aquaman, Once Upon a Deadpool and Mary Poppins Returns. Jeez – you’d best get some popcorn.

2018 really has been a great year for movies. While not every film has been amazing, there has certainly been a lot of choice. Will 2019 be as good? We’ll find out in around a month’s time.